“Ah, well, that’d be brilliant,” he said, scribbling on the form, which he then passed to me. “I just need you to fill in that section at the bottom, and that’s us done,” he said. I signed with a flourish. I don’t have much opportunity to use my signature in day-to-day life, which is rather a pity, as I have a very interesting “John Hancock,” as our cousins across the pond would have it. I don’t mean to boast. It’s just that almost everyone who’s seen it has remarked on how unusual, how special it is. Personally, I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Anyone could write an “O” as a snail-shell spiral if they wished to, after all, and using a mixture of upper- and lowercase letters is simply good sense—it ensures that the signature is difficult to forge. Personal security, data security: so important.
When I finally sat down at my desk, the first thing I noticed was the flowers. They’d been obscured by the monitor as I’d approached, but now I saw the vase (well, it was actually a pint glass; the office never had enough vases, cake knives or champagne flutes, despite employees celebrating life events on what seemed to be a weekly basis). It was filled with blooms, sea holly and agapanthus and iris, and it was glorious.
An envelope was propped against the arrangement, and I slowly opened the seal. There was a card inside, a stunning photograph of a red squirrel eating a hazelnut on the front. Inside, someone (Bernadette, I suspected, from the childlike scrawl) had written WELCOME BACK ELEANOR! and a multitude of signatures, accompanied by Best Wishes or Love, were scattered across both sides. I was somewhat taken aback. Love! Best wishes! I wasn’t at all sure what to think.
Still mulling this over, I switched on my computer. There were so many unanswered e-mails that I went straight to today’s, thinking that I’d simply delete all the others. The senders would get in touch again if they were important, surely. The most recent one, sent only ten minutes ago, was from Raymond. The subject heading read: READ ME!!!
Thought I’d better put that as u probs have about ten billion unread messages in your inbox right now LOL. I meant to say the other afternoon, I’ve got two tickets to a concert, it’s classical music, I dunno if you like that sort of thing but I kind of thought you might? It’s two weeks on Saturday if you’re free—maybe go for something to eat afterward?
See you @ lunch
Rx
Before I had a chance to reply, I realized that my colleagues had assembled in a circle around my desk without my noticing. I looked up at them. Their expressions ranged from bored to benevolent. Janey looked mildly concerned.
“We know you don’t like a fuss, Eleanor,” she said, having clearly been nominated as spokeswoman. “We just wanted to say that we’re glad you’re feeling better, and, y’know, welcome back!” There were nods, murmured assent. As speeches went, it was hardly Churchillian, but it was yet another very kind and thoughtful gesture.
I wasn’t one for public oratory, but I sensed that they would not be satisfied without a few words.
“Thank you very much indeed for the flowers and the card and the good wishes,” I said, eventually, eyes on my desk while I spoke. There was a bit of a silence that no one, and certainly not me, quite knew how to fill. I looked up at them.
“Well,” I said, “I don’t suppose those overdue invoices are going to process themselves, are they?”
“She’s back!” Billy said, and there was laughter, including my own. Yes. Eleanor Oliphant was back.
40
Wednesday night. High time.
“Hello, Mummy,” I said. I heard my own voice—it sounded flat, emotionless.
“How did you know?” Sharp. Irritated.
“It’s always you, Mummy,” I said.
“Cheeky! Don’t be insolent, Eleanor. It doesn’t suit you. Mummy doesn’t like naughty girls who talk back, you know that.”
Old ground, this—a reprimand I’d heard so many times before.
“I don’t really care what you like anymore, Mummy,” I said.
I heard her snort; short, derisive.
“Oh dear. Someone’s in a strop. What is it—time of the month? Hormones, darling? Or something else . . . let me see. Has someone been filling your head with nonsense? Telling lies about me? How many times have I warned you about that? Mummy isn’t—”
I interrupted. “Mummy, I’m going to say good-bye to you tonight.”
She laughed. “Good-bye? But that’s so . . . final, darling. There’s no need for that, come along now. What would you do without our little chats? What about your special project—don’t you think you ought to keep Mummy updated on your progress, at least?”
“The project wasn’t the answer, Mummy. It was wrong of you, very wrong of you, to tell me that it was,” I said, not sad, not happy, just stating facts.
She laughed. “It was your idea, as I recall, darling. I merely . . . cheered you on from the sidelines. That’s what a supportive Mummy would do, isn’t it?”
I thought about this. Supportive. Supportive meant . . . what did it mean? It meant caring about my welfare, it meant wanting the best for me. It meant laundering my soiled sheets and making sure I got home safely and buying me a ridiculous balloon when I was feeling sad. I had no desire to recount a list of her failings, her wrongdoings, to describe the horrors of the life we’d led back then or to go over the things she’d done and not done to Marianne, to me. There was no point now.
“You set fire to the house while Marianne and I were asleep inside. She died in there. I wouldn’t exactly call that supportive,” I said, trying my best to keep my voice calm, not entirely succeeding.
“Someone has been telling you lies—I knew it!” she said, triumph in her voice. She spoke brightly, full of enthusiasm. “Look, what I did, darling—anyone would have done the same thing in my situation. It’s like I told you: if something needs to change, change it! Of course, there will be inconveniences along the way . . . you simply have to deal with them, and not worry too much about the consequences.”
She sounded happy, glad to be dispensing advice. She was, I realized, talking about killing us, Marianne and me, her inconveniences. In a strange way, it helped.
I took a breath, although I didn’t really need to.
“Good-bye, Mummy,” I said. The last word. My voice was firm, measured, certain. I wasn’t sad. I was sure. And, underneath it all, like an embryo forming—tiny, so tiny, barely a cluster of cells, the heartbeat as small as the head of a pin, there I was. Eleanor Oliphant.
And, just like that, Mummy was gone.
Better Days
41
Although I felt completely fine and, indeed, ready to get back into the thick of it all, HR had insisted on a “phased return,” whereby I only worked during the mornings for the next few weeks. More fool them—if they wished to pay me a full-time salary for part-time hours, it was their lookout. At lunchtime on Friday, the end of my brief working day and my first week back, I met Raymond for the second time that week.
Since then, we’d been communicating solely by electronic means. I had spent the previous evening searching online. It was so easy to find things. Too easy, perhaps. I’d printed two newspaper articles without reading beyond the headlines, then sealed them in an envelope. I knew Raymond would have found them already himself, but it was important to me that I did the searching. It was my history and no one else’s. No one else alive, at any rate.
As requested, he’d joined me in the café, so that I wasn’t alone when I read them for the first time. I’d tried to cope alone for far too long, and it hadn’t done me any good at all. Sometimes you simply needed someone kind to sit with you while you dealt with things.
“I feel like a spy or something,” said Raymond, looking at the sealed envelope that lay between us.
“You’re completely unsuited to a career in espionage,” I told him. He raised his eyebrows.
“Your face is too honest,” I said, and he smil
ed.
“Ready then?” he said, serious now.
I nodded.
The envelope was a buff manila self-sealing A4, which I had purloined from the office stationery cupboard. The paper had come from there too. I felt slightly guilty about it, especially since Bob, I knew now, had to factor this sort of thing into his running costs. I opened my mouth to tell Raymond about the stationery budget, but he nodded toward the envelope encouragingly, and I realized that I could delay matters no further. I eased it open, then held it toward him to show him that there were two pages of A4 inside. Raymond shuffled even closer, so that we were touching, sides together, congruent. There was warmth and strength there and, gratefully, I drew on it. I started to read.
The Sun, August 5, 1997, p. 2
“Pretty but deadly” kiddie killer “fooled us all,” neighbors say
“Killer Mum” Sharon Smyth (pictured), 29, had been living in a quiet Maida Vale street for the last two years, neighbors said, before deliberately starting the fire that ended in tragedy.
“She was such a pretty young woman—she had us all fooled,” said a neighbor, who did not wish to be named. “Her little ones were always properly turned out, and they spoke so nice—everybody said what lovely manners they had,” he told our reporter.
“As time went on, you could tell something wasn’t right, though. The kiddies always seemed terrified of her. Sometimes they had bruises, and people heard a lot of crying in that house. She’d go out a lot. We just assumed there was a babysitter, but looking back on it . . .
“One time, I was talking to the older girl—she was only nine or ten, I’d say—and the mum shot her such a look, she started to shake like a little dog. I dread to think what went on in there behind closed doors.”
Police confirmed yesterday that the fatal blaze at the property had been started deliberately.
A child (10), who cannot be named for legal reasons, remains in hospital in critical condition.
I looked at Raymond. He looked at me. Neither of us said anything for a while.
“You know how it ends, right?” Raymond said, gentle, quiet, looking me in the eye.
I pulled out the second article.
London Evening Standard, September 28, 1997, p. 9
Maida Vale murder latest: two dead, plucky orphan recovers
Police confirmed today that the bodies recovered from the scene of last week’s Maida Vale house fire belonged to Sharon Smyth (29) and her youngest daughter Marianne (4). Her eldest child, Eleanor (10), was released today from hospital after making what doctors described as a “miraculous” recovery from third-degree burns and smoke inhalation.
The spokesman confirmed that 29-year-old Smyth started the fire deliberately, and died at the scene as a result of smoke inhalation as she fled the property. Tests on both children revealed that a sedative had been administered, and provided evidence that they had been physically restrained.
Our reporter understands that Eleanor Smyth initially managed to free herself and escape the blaze. Neighbors then reported seeing the badly injured ten-year-old re-entering the house before the emergency services arrived. Firefighters allegedly found her attempting to open a locked wardrobe in an upstairs bedroom. The body of her four-year-old sister was recovered inside.
Police have been unable to trace any living relatives of the child, who is being cared for by Social Services.
That’s all I found too,” Raymond said, as I pushed the printouts toward him.
I looked out of the window. People were shopping, talking on mobiles, pushing prams. The world just went on, regardless of what happened. That’s how it works.
Neither of us spoke for a while.
“Are you OK?” he said.
I nodded.
“I’m going to keep seeing the counselor. It helps.”
He looked at me carefully. “How do you feel?” he said.
“Not you as well.” I sighed, and then I smiled so that he would know that I was joking. “I’m fine. I mean, yes, obviously, I’ve got a lot of things to work through, very serious things. Dr. Temple and I are going to keep talking about all of it—Marianne’s death, how Mummy died too and why I pretended for all those years that she was still there, still talking to me . . . it’s going to take time and it’s not going to be easy,” I said. I felt very calm. “Essentially, though, in all the ways that matter . . . I’m fine now. Fine,” I repeated, stressing the word because, at last, it was true.
A woman jogged past, running after a Chihuahua, shouting its name in an increasingly anxious tone.
“Marianne loved dogs,” I said. “Every time we saw one, she’d point and laugh, then try to hug it.”
Raymond cleared his throat. More coffees came, and we drank slowly.
“Will you be OK?” Raymond said. He looked angry with himself. “Sorry. Stupid question. I just wish I’d known sooner,” he said. “I wish I could have helped more.” He glared at the wall, looking as though he was trying not to cry. “No one should have to go through what you’ve been through,” he said finally, furious. “You lost your little sister, even though you tried your best to save her, and you were only a child yourself. That you could come through that, all of it, and then spend all those years trying to deal with it on your own, it’s—”
I interrupted him. “When you read about ‘monsters’,” I said, “household names . . . you forget they had families. They don’t just spring from nowhere. You never think about the people that are left behind to deal with the aftermath of it all.”
He nodded slowly.
“I’ve requested access to my files from Social Services now. I’ve had cause to review my opinion of the Freedom of Information Act, Raymond, and let me tell you, it’s actually a splendid piece of legislation. When it arrives, I’m going to sit down and read it cover to cover—the Bumper Book of Eleanor. I need to know everything—all the little details. That’s going to help me. Or depress me. Or both.”
I smiled, to show him I wasn’t worried, and to make sure that he wasn’t worried either.
“It’s more than that though, isn’t it?” he said. “All those lost years, wasted years. Terrible things happened to you. You needed help back then and you didn’t get it. You’ve got a right to it now, Eleanor—” He shook his head, unable to find the words.
“In the end, what matters is this: I survived.” I gave him a very small smile. “I survived, Raymond!” I said, knowing that I was both lucky and unlucky, and grateful for it.
When it was time to leave, I noticed and appreciated Raymond’s effort to move the conversation toward something else, something normal.
“What have you got planned for the rest of the week, then?” he said.
I counted things off on my fingers. “I’ve got to take Glen to the vet for her vaccinations,” I said, “and I’ve got a Christmas night out at the safari park to organize. Their website says that they’re closed for winter, but I’m sure I’ll be able to persuade them.”
We went outside and stood by the doorway for a moment, enjoying the sunshine. He rubbed his face, then looked over my shoulder toward the trees. He cleared his throat again. One of the many perils of being a smoker.
“Eleanor, did you get my e-mail about that concert? I was just wondering whether—”
“Yes,” I said, smiling. He nodded, looked closely at me and then slowly smiled back. The moment hung in time like a drop of honey from a spoon, heavy, golden. We stood aside to let a woman in a wheelchair and her friend go inside. Raymond’s lunch break was almost up. I had the rest of the day to spend however I wanted.
“Bye then, Raymond,” I said. He pulled me in for a hug and held me for a moment, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. I felt the warm bulk of him, soft but strong. When we broke apart, I kissed his cheek, his bristles all soft and ticklish.
“See you soon, Eleanor Oliphant,” he
said.
I picked up my shopper, fastened my jerkin and turned toward home.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my friends and to my family, and also to the following people and organizations:
Janice Galloway, for always being wise and inspiring.
My amazing agent Madeleine Milburn, and her colleagues at the agency, for their enthusiasm, expertise, advice and support.
My editors, Martha Ashby in the UK and Pamela Dorman in the US, who took meticulous care of the book and brought insight, wisdom and good humor to the editorial process. My thanks also to their talented colleagues at HarperCollins and Penguin Random House, respectively, who were involved in designing, producing and raising awareness of the book. I am very fortunate to be in such good hands.
The Scottish Book Trust selected me to receive the Next Chapter Award, which, among other things, allowed me to spend time writing and editing at Moniack Mhor Creative Writing Centre. I’m very grateful to both organizations.
My writers’ group, for constructive feedback, helpful discussion and good company.
George and Annie, for their generous hospitality and unstinting encouragement.
Finally, thanks to George Craig, Vicki Jarrett, Kirsty Mitchell and Philip Murnin. I’m very grateful for their supportive friendship, editorial insight and good humored encouragement while I was writing (and not writing) this book.
Gail Honeyman is a graduate of the universities of Glasgow and Oxford. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine was short-listed for the Lucy Cavendish College Fiction Prize and is Honeyman’s debut novel. She lives in Glasgow, Scotland.
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